Franklin repeated to the audience of pale faces staring back at him. In his imaginings of this moment he thought that by uttering this phrase his deeper meaning would be instantly understood. He thought that he would be buoyed along by loud and boisterous acclamation from the crowd into a long but clear and witty monologue about the homogenized nature of the WetWeb. He imagined how it would twist their perception of the world around them until they could no longer see the real world. A real world that he himself, the author and hero of his story, was now just realizing - only glimpsing for the first time. But, his imagination of the moment was quite different from the reality. The small crowd of elderly book enthusiasts stared back at him with questioning eyes. The understanding of the truth of the WetWeb that he thought would come to him in an epiphany instead eluded him. He began to wonder if he had anything original to say. He wondered if he had anything to say at all.
